Karatani, Isonomia and the Origins of Philosophy
Series: Social Semantics
In Isonomia and the Origins of Philosophy, Kōjin Karatani offers a powerful corrective to Athenocentric narratives of philosophy’s birth by relocating its emergence within the distinct social structures of the Ionian polis. His central claim—that philosophy arose in tandem with the political condition of isonomia (equality without rule)—grounds intellectual history in material social forms, particularly the dissolution of tribal affiliation and the rise of voluntary association in colonial settlements.